It is a tragic tale of star-crossed lovers that ends with the darkest of twists.

When the bodies of a man and a young woman were found on a lonely stretch of Lincolnshire beach, mystery surrounded their deaths.

Thomas Hayter, 43, and 21-year-old Eva 'Annie' Ostler, were discovered side by side on the sand at the edge of the surf, each shot through the heart. A rusty, sawn-off gun was lying by the man.

Both had been missing for a week from their separate homes in North Thoresby.

The authorities decided that Tom had murdered Annie, before killing himself. The question was, why?

And adding to the mystery was the strange fact that unmarried Annie wore a wedding ring on her finger.

Thomas Hayter, 43, and Eva 'Annie' Ostler, 21, who died in a suicide pact which shocked the community (Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

The desperate picture that emerged next shocked and saddened people around Britain when it was first reported in October 1922.

Not so long before, life had been looking good for Tom, a former naval officer, who was working as a mechanic and living in Victor Street, Grimsby, with his wife, Jeannie, and their infant child.

Then tragedy struck when Jeannie fell ill and was taken to Grimsby Hospital, where she passed away from septic poisoning. Worse was to follow when the child died a fortnight later.

The bereaved Tom now began lodging with the village cobbler, Albert Ostler and his wife, who had nursed Mrs Hayter during her illness, and their daughter, Annie, who had been working in a Grimsby factory.

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But after three months, Albert discovered Tom was courting Annie and told him to leave. It seems that Tom had lost his job and had fallen on hard times.

“I thought he could not keep a wife,” Albert later told a coroner’s inquest. “I thought it would be better for him to leave. He went to lodge in the village but did not continue to see my daughter at my house; but I understand they met somewhere.

“With the exception of objecting we did nothing further, and did not threaten her.”

On the day he and Annie went missing, Tom told friends he was going to catch a train from Grimsby to London.

Victor Street where Tom had lived while working in Grimsby, suffering a dreadful tragedy

Meanwhile, Annie told her father that she was going off to lend a dress case to a friend. It was the last time he saw her.

The coroner’s inquest heard that Tom had eloped with Annie to Mablethorpe, where they spent the next week living on the coast as man and wife.

The couple stayed in a room at the Pie In Hand Cafe, where they signed the register as “Mr and Mrs Hayter, Grimsby, Lincs, October 4th.”

A witness said they seemed fairly cheerful all week until the evening of their deaths, when they appeared depressed did not seem to have much to say.

A photograph taken in the early 1920s outside the Pie in Hand Restaurant where Thomas and Eva stayed (Image: Ruth Ellis)

When their money ran out, they left their lodgings without paying the bill, took a final walk on the beach and said their sad farewells.

Annie held open her coat so Tom could put a gun to her chest. Then, stripped to his shirt, he turned the weapon on himself.

A groundsman at the Sutton-on-Sea golf course discovered their bodies at Huttoft Bank, both face downwards, with their hats about fifteen yards away, where they had been washed by the tide. In Tom’s possession was just ninepence, a penknife and a broken masonic ring.

Their footprints in the sand seemed to support the idea that this had been a suicide pact. They appeared to have walked closely together up to the point where they turned sharply to the right and were found. “Death had been deliberately courted”.

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Sutton-on-Sea beach where the couple were found (Image: Richard Hoare)

The lovers had written suicide notes explaining their actions.

Tom’s letter, addressed to the coroner, read: “I have had nothing but worry and financial difficulties since I was demobbed from the Navy.

“Neither of us fear what we have determined to do, and I am sure it is the only way, as this is the country they said would be fit for heroes to live in, but we are going to try the other.”

If his words sounded bitter or conflicted, Annie’s last message to her parents was a straightforward statement of passion.

It read: “When you receive this I will have passed away to the land of beyond with the only man I love, who is now my husband.”

Despite their claims, however, there was no evidence that they had been married. The girl would have worn a wedding ring to hide suspicion, the coroner heard.

Thomas Hayter had hit hard times after leaving the Royal Navy (Image: Grimsby Telegraph)

The inquest jury, sitting at the Bacchus Hotel in Sutton-on-Sea, returned a verdict of murder and suicide: that the couple made a pact together to die, that the man shot the woman, and turned the gun upon himself.

But the story did not end there. A few days later, surprising new information emerged that put a darker complex on Tom’s motives.

After the inquest was reported around Britain, a woman from London came forward claiming to be Tom’s wife. They had married, she said, in 1917, and had a child before he deserted her and went to live with another woman.

In 1921, this woman - Jeannie - died, but Tom did not return to his real wife. However, she had obtained a maintenance order against him and he sent her money from North Thoresby.